


The life of a Lethbridge-Stewart

by Pearlislove



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Issues, Fluff and Angst, Gen, character backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 08:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10681302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove
Summary: Kate return to her family after the events of 'Death in heaven', thinking over the life she's lived and is living still.





	The life of a Lethbridge-Stewart

**Author's Note:**

> Blatantly ignoring 'Downtime' and the existance of Gordon 'Gordy' Stewart.
> 
> Take place after 'Death in heaven' and deeply analyse the life and mind of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart
> 
> Show my own backstory for Kate Stewart

“Kate Stewart. Divorcee, mother of two, keen gardener, outstanding bridge player. Also Chief Scientific Officer, Unified Intelligence Taskforce, who currently have you surrounded.”

 

It takes about fifteen minutes after The Doctor got her fully conscious and on her feet again, before she remembers, that it's her week. Of course it's her week, the world never saves it self and she is never perfectly safe when it's her week, is she? Well technically it hadn’t been her week during the second Slitheen invasion, but Tom had taken his new girlfriend on an impromptu vacation - no kids allowed - so it had ended up her week anyway. 

 

Nothing motivates you like being able to come home to your children, she supposed, walking a little faster up the street to her house. She had won it in the divorce two years back, had it handed on a silver platter together with everything else she’d asked for, which was basically everything one  could  ask for in a divorce. The only thing, that she hadn’t asked for, that people had expected, was full custody. She hadn’t asked for full custody, knowing fully well she could have.

 

But it wasn’t what she wanted for her children, was it? A father who was never there though he wanted to. It made her stomach knot, made her think of her own childhood and all the many horrors that had lined it, following her through her life and giving her memories she’d never wish upon anyone else. 

 

Eight years old and she’d been kidnapped by her mother to stop her father from getting full custody and separating them.

 

Eleven years old and she fled back to her father. 

 

Eleven and a half and she was kidnapped by her mother once more.

 

She was nineteen when she saw her father next, having ran away with a promise to never return to the woman who claimed she loved her, and though she was happier than she’d ever been before, the thought of all those years in between still made her shudder. No, she would never be guilty of keeping their father out of her daughters lives.

 

Besides, they needed at least one parent who didn't wander off saving the lives of billions while they were at school.

 

As she comes upon the gate to her little front garden, she can hear voices from inside the house.

 

“Where is mom? Mom said she’d be home for tea.”

 

“She is out there, with the cybermen. She made them blow up, didn’t she? I know she did, she always do!”

 

“Blow up stuff?”

 

“Win!”

 

A smile crept onto Kate’s tired face as she heard her daughters bickering from within the walls of her home. She would have never admitted it, at least not in front of Tom, but she had been worried. Mrs.Nott, the next door neighbour who normally watched the children - not that they needed a babysitter at their age, but all things considered it felt safer - was a widow since many years, and subconsciously she worried it would make them a more likely target for the cyberman.

 

“Mrs.Nott? May? Sarah Jane?” She calls for them as she opens the gate, trying to sound much more happy and cheerful than she feels on the inside, trying to convince herself the feelings will be true once she got her children in her arms.

 

The effect is immediate, little feet tapping across the floors down the hallway and bigger, heavier feet following.

 

“Children, wait!” Mrs.Nott cried out, her footsteps getting faster as she obviously try to reach the door before the children, but it's a doomed mission as the door still opens only two moments later and as a blond eight year old and a brown-haired twelve year old comes flying out the door.

 

“Mommy is home!” May screams, enthusiastic and glad with piercing blue eyes setting their focus on Kate. 

 

“MOM! We missed you!” Sarah Jane calls, serious and subdued but ultimately so happy, brown eyes so big and vast and fill with emotions as they meet Kate’s own.

 

Smiling still, even though she feels more and more like crying, she sit down on her knees in the gravel, ignoring the way it hurt her already scraped and bruised flesh as she offers her arms and enveloped her two children in a massive hug.

 

“I’m home” She whispered, as the two bodies, still so small and fragile despite not being small at all, press against her, tears slowly sliding down her cheeks. Today, she had been terrified. Properly terrified. Today, she had been flung out of an aircraft by a mad lady and for the first time she’d found herself thinking that maybe she wasn’t going to come home. She was going to have left that morning not having ever come back.   
  


Her last thought, what she’d thought would be her last thought, had been dedicated to her father. She had wished, hoped without hope, that he had not been caught in the hell Missy'd made out of Earth.

 

Somehow, he must have heard her. He’d heard her pray and searched out the one praying, saving her from her certain dome. She didn’t remember much, but she remembered the mental arms closing around her in an embrace, the crackling robot voice whispering. 

 

“Kate. My. Daughter.”

 

It had not been him, not really, yet somehow it must’ve been and when she passed out he’d landed her on the ground, putting her there for The Doctor to find and make sure she would come home safe.

 

Hugging her children even tighter, more tears rolling down her cheeks with Mrs.Nott watching her from the doorstep, Kate think of her father.

 

She thinks of being little, a tiny blond haired toddler with pig tails and pants - always refusing skirts, always refusing dresses - running down the path from their home to the gate, greeting her father with hugs and unconditional love.

 

Sometimes, he didn't come home. She’d stand by the gate till supper, then after supper all the way till nightfall, waiting for him.

 

Sometimes, she went to bed not knowing whether he was alive or dead. She was never happy when she woke up those mornings, because she knew, that perhaps the greatest sadness had struck, and had it not, her mother would surely be yelling and throwing things until evening came because it could have.

 

She’s holding onto her children so tight now she’s practically squeezing the life out of them, rivers of tears she'd hold back for years cascading down her face. Her children are crying, too, shacking little lumps of warm flesh in her arms telling her without words that they too were  scared . That there were robots in the streets that could kill them and they were  scared \- scared that they would be killed, and scared that their mother wouldn’t win.

 

Mrs.Nott is still watching from the door, and Kate can hear the sound as she wipes her nose with a hand kiefer and knows that she is crying too. Knows that she is thinking of the what ifs, like every time Kate comes home and another day has passed and the world has been saved once more.

 

Because what if she  hadn't  won, what if the cyberman - she didn’t want to call it her dad and forever have the memories of the two connected -  hadn't   caught her.

 

What if her daughters would have been standing at the door and waiting for someone who was never coming back.

 

What if Mrs.Nott had ended up sitting on her knees in the gravel and holding them as they cried, and not her.

 

There was so many thing to shed tears over, things that could have been and things that were. But today, just today, they were allowed to shed tears over the right things.

 

Because she  had  won, and she had come home to meet her children and hug them and cry. Despite losing her father all over again, despite almost dying, despite  everything , she was home with her daughters and the baby sitter and it was  okay .

 


End file.
